Page 17

Chapter 17

Yoshi

K aneko and I sat at the small table in my family’s private dining room, eating in silence, each lost in thought. The Trials had been exactly as we expected—and entirely different from anything we could have imagined.

So far, the four of us had survived with only bruises and wounded pride to show for our effort. Neither the priests nor any of Tooi’s elders had offered a single word of praise. Come to think of it, they had also not throttled us with derision for our bickering and troubled decision-making. Soga had proven to be a pain in our backsides. Despite this, it was impossible to deny his overwhelming strength and agility. He was an asset to our group, as each of us was in our own ways.

I watched Kaneko eat for a moment, silently assessing his movements and enjoying the grace with which he chewed, the focus he poured into even the simplest of tasks. Then I chided myself for assigning grace to chewing. What had I become? Some fever-ridden child whose affections threatened to overwhelm good sense?

Okay, maybe that was a tad dramatic—if a bit too close to the mark.

Still, watching Kaneko gave me a sense of hope, a purpose, a will to live and thrive and succeed. Nothing could hold us back. Nothing could defeat us. I wouldn’t let it, because defeat meant losing the one thing I’d recently found that gave life texture and color . . . and meaning.

“What do you think it will be today?” Kaneko asked, setting his bowl down and wiping his mouth with his sleeve. I might’ve been falling for him, but he was still a barbarian in so many ways. I chuckled to myself as I watched him fidget with the stain his lips had left on the fabric.

“It’s the last one. Does that mean it will be easier or harder than the rest?” I asked.

“They’ve gotten progressively harder.” Kaneko shrugged. “My gold is on this being brutal.”

I grunted in agreement and took a sip of tea.

“At least we get to do most of this together,” he said, his eyes twinkling in the morning sun streaming through a nearby window.

I shrugged, ignoring what I was sure was meant as a sweet overture. “The four of us are stronger when we work together. I think that is the overarching moral to all of this. We, as a people, need each other. We struggle together. We thrive together. Each is made better and stronger when we unite and walk a common path. To walk alone leads to heartache and death.”

Kaneko blinked.

“What?”

“You, uh, well . . . that was deep . . . and kind of depressing.”

“Depressing?” I grinned. “What’s depressing about working together?”

“Not that. The whole walking toward death thing. Shit, Yosh, can we just focus on the positives here? We still have a Trial to go. No talk of death or dismemberment, please.”

I let my arm flap about, grabbing it with my other hand. “Kaneko! My arm. It’s falling off!”

He tossed a cloth napkin, smacking me in the face.

“Idiot,” he said through a sardonic grin. “We’d better go. Can’t keep His Imperial Majesty waiting.”

That thought was an ice bath on a wintery day.

Soga and Niiro were waiting for us on the road to the shrine, just outside of town. Neither smiled as we approached. Neither spoke as we walked. We were four almost adults striding toward the final test that would grant us passage into the next phase of our lives.

No pressure.

The moment we stepped past the torii gate, the world shimmered as it had the day before, and the four of us found ourselves standing in an ancient city at a junction where five roads met.

The first thing I noticed was the silence.

It was not the peaceful hush of snowfall or the solemn quiet of a temple before morning prayers. This was a silence that suffocated, that wrapped itself around me like a coiled serpent, pressing against my ears, crushing the very idea of sound. I felt it in my chest, in the hollow space where my heartbeat should have echoed.

I turned in a slow circle, taking in a city of ghosts.

The streets stretched wide before narrowing into a maze of twisting alleyways, their paths paved with stones so worn they seemed more like relics than roads. Deep cracks ran through them, splitting the ground like the veins of something ancient—something dying.

Buildings towered around us, their wood and stone warped with age, walls slumped under the weight of centuries. Some structures leaned dangerously, their beams groaning against the earth’s pull, while others stood eerily untouched, as though waiting for the world to wake again.

Nothing moved.

No light flickered.

No shadows shifted behind the lattice of broken windows.

There were no birds above, no insects below.

Even the air felt stagnant, thick with the scent of something old. There was only dust, damp stone, and the memory of decay.

And then there was the fog.

It rolled through the streets in slow, curling tendrils, living, breathing, and moving in ways mist should not move. It gathered in doorways as if listening, pooled in the corners of alleys like something lurking, waiting for us to make the wrong step.

And yet, for all the emptiness, for all the stillness, I could not shake the feeling that we were being watched.

We strode forward and turned a corner.

A statue loomed, half buried in the broken earth—the figure of a forgotten god or emperor or Samurai. Its face was eroded beyond recognition, its arms reaching toward the sky in silent, unanswered prayer. A thousand cracks ran through its body, as though it had tried to hold itself together for centuries before finally giving up.

I swallowed hard.

This was the graveyard of time herself.

But time had not abandoned the world entirely.

I looked down and found footprints in the dust.

They were fresh.

And not ours.

The city was not as empty as it seemed.

We were not alone.

I turned in a slow circle. There was no wind, no sun, no moon. The sky above was a dull, endless gray, not morning or night but some purgatory in between. Silence pressed against my ears, too complete, too unnatural.

I touched my chest, steadying my breathing. Only then did I realize Kaneko, Soga, and Niiro had vanished.

I was alone.

Exhaling slowly, I began to walk. If this was the Trial of Endurance, which I knew it was, I simply had to outlast the vision and emerge the victor. This might be tedious, and I might want to scream before it ended, but it was a battle I could fight, a war I could win.

The streets twisted in an endless maze.

I walked for hours, careful to point my feet in a different direction, though each turn, frustratingly, led me back to where I started. I recognized the same crumbling walls, the same rusted lanterns, the same statue of a forgotten god, its face worn away by unseen hands.

Yet I never turned back.

Each time I set foot on a new road, it was as if the city itself shifted behind me, rearranged its bones, led me forward in a cruel loop.

I clenched my jaw.

The maze wanted me to grow frustrated.

It wanted me to stop.

It willed me to break.

I would not.

I would walk until my sandals tore apart and my feet were shredded and bloody. Closing my eyes, I pictured Kaneko, his inky hair blowing in the sea’s breath, his broad shoulders and wider smile. My heart filled with joy and hope as I heard his laughter.

I would never quit, not on myself and not on the hope of seeing Kaneko again.

“Yoshi,” an ethereal voice whispered.

I turned sharply, my heart hammering. The voice was soft, almost familiar, slipping through the fog like the memory of a dream.

But I saw nothing.

I took another step—

“Rest, Yoshi,” the voice crooned.

I spun around, my pulse pounding. The street behind me was empty.

Then, in the distance, the mist stirred, and a figure emerged from the pale abyss, half shrouded in shadow. He stood tall, his presence unmistakable even before I saw his face.

My grandfather.

I inhaled sharply.

His armor was polished, his swords resting at his hips, his expression unreadable yet unyielding. Silver hair flowed on wind that did not blow. Lines deep as ancient rivers flowed from his temples and forehead. His face was iron, though his eyes showed endless compassion and love.

“You have walked far enough,” he said. “Come to me and kneel.”

The command was effortless. It struck like a hammer against an anvil.

I wanted to obey, to run to him, to fall at his feet and allow him to shepherd me home.

I almost did.

Almost.

But this was wrong . Grandfather had been dead for years, though my body reacted as if his voice held weight over my very existence.

My hands shook.

I forced myself to meet his gaze and speak. “You are not Grandfather.”

The illusion smiled. Not warmly. Mockingly. It bared its teeth. My grandfather’s teeth.

The moment the words left my lips, the form shattered, dissolving into mist, leaving the street empty once more.

The air grew colder.

A withering sun shone overhead, somehow blazing on the blizzard-like day. Snow covered everything, enshrouding the city in a cloak of pure white.

The silence was again absolute.

Unsure what to do, I resumed walking.

Or had I?

The streets stretched endlessly, as time slipping through my fingers like grains of sand.

Had it been hours? Days?

My thoughts twisted at the edges, unraveling, lost in the infinite sameness of the city.

Then—another voice.

This time Kaneko’s.

“You need not bear everything alone, my love.”

I stiffened.

My love?

Kaneko had never called me that. My heart longed to believe, to wrap itself around the sound of his words, to let them fill me with light and love and joy. I wanted to surrender, to give myself to him, to never wake from a dream in which he pledged himself to me, his passion and heart and life.

Gods, I wanted him more than I wanted air to breathe.

“You think you have to keep going because you’re strong, but what if that strength only gets you killed? What if true strength requires you to lay down your burden and allow others to carry the load?”

I turned another corner, and there he was.

Just as I had pictured when I closed my eyes, his hair blowing, his chiseled jaw gleaming beneath the sweltering sun, his smile parting his lips, and—

Kaneko leaned against a wall and crossed his arms, his expression unreadable. His face, his stance—it was him.

He was real .

Gods, I wanted to believe he was real. I wanted it to be him with every fiber of my being. But in my heart, I knew better.

I swallowed hard, forcing my voice to remain steady. “I deny you, creature. You are not Kaneko.”

The face twisted as a wide, inhuman grin stretched too far. Its limbs elongating, shifting, before the mist swallowed it whole.

Its voice slithered into my ears. “When the time comes, you will break, Yoshi- kun . You will never bear the strength to become Daimyo . You will fail. Your people will die. And the world will not care.”

The street stood empty again.

My feet moved of their own accord.

I don’t know how long I walked in utter silence before I heard a scream.

Raw. Desperate. Fading.

I froze.

The cold returned, deeper now, sinking into my marrow.

“Soga?”

I ran.

The city blurred around me as I sprinted through the empty streets. My heart slammed against my ribs. The mist swirled, parting for a moment to reveal—

Soga’s body.

He lay twisted on the ground, his back arched, his hands clawing at the dirt. His breath came in shallow, gasping heaves.

Blood pooled beneath him.

So much blood.

I dropped to my knees beside him, my fingers pressing against his chest, searching for a wound—for anything I could fix.

There was nothing.

There were no visible cuts. No gaping wounds. Just his broken body, blood, and the blasted, empty city.

His eyes found mine, wild and distant.

“It doesn’t end.” His voice was barely a whisper. “Even when you stop . . . it keeps going.”

My hands trembled.

“Soga—stay awake. Please,” I begged, my voice rough. “We’re getting out of here.”

His fingers twitched against mine. Then, slowly—his grip loosened.

“No—no! Gods, no!” My voice cracked. I shook him, hard. “Stay awake, damn you!”

His body convulsed.

Then stillness.

His lips parted, but no breath came.

The city exhaled.

And then he was gone.

No body. No blood.

Just emptiness.

I kneeled there, breathless, the silence crashing down around me.

For the first time since the Trial began—I felt small.

Helpless.

Hopeless.

But I wouldn’t stop.

I couldn’t stop.

I forced myself to my feet, my entire body trembling, tears flowing freely down nearly frozen cheeks, as I turned back toward the road.

And I walked.

How long did I wander before the gate appeared, before sunlight shone against gilding, lighting the way and lifting my sullen heart? How long had I walked and lived and lost?

A torii gate, golden and untouched, stood alone in the mist.

The moment I stepped beneath it, the world shattered.

The silence broke.

The cold vanished.

And I was back.

The shrine. The priests. The warm touch of the wind.

Niiro.

Kaneko.

But not Soga.

“Soga?” I asked, my gaze shifting from Niiro to Kaneko.

Kaneko shook his head, then his gaze fell. The weight of it crushed me. I fell to my knees, my lungs gasping for air.

The Emperor, his dragon, the priests and villagers, they were there. They all watched.

I didn’t care.

Tears fell like a tsunami of pain, a deluge to wash away civilization itself. They fell into the pond, now a simple pool of water; and in a strange way, my grief became an offering to nature herself.

Finally, when my tears had dried, the Grand Minister stepped forward, his expression unreadable. His voice was low, unshaken, and final.

“Endurance is not simply about strength, but about bearing the weight of those you cannot save.”

I looked up, my eyes red and lined with fire.

The man bowed low and said, “Now, you understand.”

And I did.

And it broke me.